Tag: Plame

Ever the fan of cherry-picking, former Vice President Dick Cheney has called for the declassification of select intelligence he claims would polish his torture legacy. Whistle-blower extraordinaire Joe Wilson says the “most secretive individual in American politics” shouldn’t stop there—why not air all of the Bush administration’s dirty laundry once and for all?

The former vice president is still sore that his top aide didn’t get a presidential pardon. Dick Cheney told CNN that he and the president had a “fundamental difference of opinion” that ultimately “left Scooter sort of hanging in the wind, which I didn’t think was appropriate.”

One of the benefits of saturating the American people with scandal is that folks eventually stop paying attention. That’s certainly the case with Plamegate, which is still being investigated despite the president’s best efforts to the contrary and a public that has generally moved on.

The mystery of the missing White House e-mails is likely never to be solved, its plot so convoluted that even Henry Waxman, the dogged House investigator who has brought to light such unseemliness as contracting scandals in Iraq reconstruction, seems to be flummoxed.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby has made the “tactical” decision to drop his appeal. After all, why spend millions of dollars in legal fees when you still have friends in high places? President Bush earlier commuted Libby’s sentence, keeping the former Cheney aide out of prison but leaving him with a criminal record and a fine. The White House won’t comment on whether Bush intends to pardon Libby.

Turns out that the current White House press secretary, Dana Perino (pictured), has broached the uncomfortable topic (considering her position) of Scott McClellan’s upcoming book. Unsurprisingly, Perino reported in an off-camera moment during Monday’s White House press briefing that Bush never knowingly misinformed McClellan.

There has been no shortage of tell-all books from former Bushies (paging George Tenet), but the latest one, by former White House spokesman Scott McClellan, is a real bombshell—primarily because McClellan alleges that the president, the vice president and three other high-ranking officials allowed him to pass “false information” about the Valerie Plame CIA identity leak case to the press.

Say what you want about the serious news function of satirical shows like “The Daily Show” in today’s treacherous media landscape, but only those, like Jon Stewart, operating in the Comedy Central orbit can get away with asking ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson if her breasts “are still working for the CIA.”

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr.‘s chances of avoiding time in the slammer are looking slim after Thursday’s ruling by Federal Judge Reggie B. Walton rejecting Libby’s lawyers’ request that their client remain free to roam while he appeals his conviction for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements related to the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity in 2003.

With his sentencing looming, it appears that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby—one of the highest White House officials ever convicted of a felony—has learned precisely nothing from his trial and conviction on charges of false statements, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Note: originally published on TomDispatch.

Truthdig’s seasoned political reporter sizes up the Republican candidates in the 2008 presidential race, noting how their tributes to Ronald Reagan remind him of Walt Disney’s animatronic reconstruction of Abraham Lincoln.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was found guilty on four of the five counts of perjury and obstruction for which he was standing trial. Media Matters anticipates the misinformation talking points likely to circulate in the mainstream media.

There can be no doubt after multiple witnesses and now audio recordings from Libby himself that the White House was hopping mad about Joe Wilson’s assertion that the administration cherry-picked intelligence to make the case for war. On the tapes, Libby describes the vice president as “upset” and “disturbed” over what he considered a political assault.

Dick Cheney’s former chief spokeswoman testified on Thursday that she told the vice president and his chief of staff about Valerie Plame’s CIA status days before Libby claimed he learned the information. She also said the pair was intensely interested in Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s Plamegate trial finally gets started on Tuesday, promising to reveal the polluted secrets of a dishonest and opportunistic Washington elite. Expect to see Dick Cheney, the first sitting vice president to testify at a criminal trial, squirm as lawyers and witnesses discuss the administration’s cherry-picking of intelligence.

“Scooter” Libby’s defense team said it intends to call Vice President Dick Cheney to testify on its behalf in the high-profile perjury trial that resulted from an investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity. The vice president’s spokeswoman indicated that he would comply with the request: “We’ve cooperated fully in this matter and will continue to do so in fairness to the parties involved.”

Columnist Robert Novak and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage can’t agree on what Armitage’s intentions were when he told Novak about Valerie Plame’s employment by the CIA. Novak claims it was a deliberate leak; Armitage says it was much more casual.

The revelation that Richard Armitage first disclosed Valerie Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA operative doesn’t change the fact that it was Karl Rove and Scooter Libby who used that information in an attempt to punish Ms. Wilson for her husband’s criticism of the Bush administration.

The woman at the center of the CIA leak case “was no analyst or paper-pusher;” rather, she was chief of operations on the CIA’s clandestine Joint Task Force on Iraq, which was heading up the CIA’s intelligence hunt for Saddam’s WMD. Thus, her outing by Bush administration officials was a serious breach of national security—not to mention a career-killer.
The Nation’s David Corn has the scoop in his new book, “Hubris.”

Richard Armitage, Bush’s former deputy secretary of state, has confirmed through a lawyer that he was the original source in the CIA leak case. But he says he had no malicious intent. He was just gossiping with reporters.

How does this fit in with the theory that the Bush White House leaked Valerie Plame’s name as a revenge ploy against her husband? (Jump to find out.)

The first person to tell reporters that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA was not, apparently, someone in Dick Cheney’s circle out to smear Plame as a way of getting back at her husband, who had criticized the administration. Rather, it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who didn’t have an ax to grind, who didn’t know Plame was an undercover operative, and who was apparently just passing on gossip, according to a new book.

“The Daily Show” host pointed out the hypocrisy in Sean Hannity’s double standard on the ethics of leaking classified information, and slammed Robert Novak for making light of destroying CIA agent Valerie Plame’s career.

From the AP: The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential advisor Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.

Columnist Robert Novak revealed for the first time, in a column to be released Wednesday, that both Karl Rove and former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent. He said that this occurred only after another administration official first supplied him with the info.This is not a huge deal, relatively speaking, but certainly of interest to Plamegate junkies….

The president told federal investigators that he ordered Vice President Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter the allegations made by former Ambassador Joe Wilson that the White House had misrepresented intelligence to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with Bush’s statement, as quoted by Murray Waas of the National Journal.

If this story is correct, this not only links Bush with the CIA leak case, it puts him squarely at its helm.

That’s the word from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and Rove’s lawyer. This comes after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two sides. Bush called Fitzgerald’s conduct throughout the proceeding “dignified.”

Murray Waas at the National Journal has another sizzling scoop: Then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft continued to oversee the Valerie Plame-CIA leak probe long after he learned that top White House officials were suspected of involvement. (He didn’t recuse himself from the investigation for two months…)

Muckraking journalist extraordinaire Murray Waas reports that investigators suspect that columnist Robert Novak called Karl Rove to concoct a cover story that would protect Rove in the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has disclosed handwritten notes by the vice president that ask whether former Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent to Niger on a “junket” by his wife. The notes appear on a copy of Wilson’s N.Y. Times Op-Ed piece that kicked off the controversy. (via Huff Po)

Remember Valerie Plame Wilson? Well, she was apparently working on Iran when she was outed as a CIA agent by Robert Novak, and the outing allegedly damaged America’s ability to track Iran’s nuclear ambitions.